I finished the Rescue Diver course on Monday and have now started on the PADI Divemaster course. There�s a lot to cover so the next 5 weeks should be busy. As part of this I need to be able to swim reasonably well rather than just splash around aimlessly, so I started swimming training on Wednesday. Haven�t quite got it sorted yet but I have drunk a considerable amount of caribbean seawater....
The monitoring has been going so well that we are aiming to start up a new characterisation survey in the next few weeks. The downside of this is that I am going to have to learn the latin names for over 100 different types of algae!
Had a day off monitoring on Saturday and just had a couple of fun dives. It seems very strange to dive without holding onto tape measures, slates etc Amusingly on one of the dives Adam managed to find a dive torch which Rod had "lost" 3 weeks ago. It�s a good job dive torches sink!
Saturday night was, of course, party night. Around half of us stayed at the base at Pez Maya where we sat through some of the most torrential rain you can imagine! However, the beer kept on flowing and a hilarious singalong kept everyone in good spirits.
The rain continued throughout the night, and the first couple of hours on Sunday were spent clearing out flooded huts and boats. Good fun with a hangover....
We�ve now reached the halfway point of the expedition, and sadly we had to say goodbye to the "5-weekers" last night. This was of course done in true alcoholic style with another big party at Playa del Carmen, hence my current state. I had to spend the night sleeping on a cold stone floor as a couple of us couldn�t manage to get into our hotel room. Ooops.
There are around 10 new volunteers arriving later today to replace those that left this morning. I�m hoping that whoever joins my cabana can direct cooking duties as well as Lou did, otherwise I suspect that we all might be quite hungry when my hut cooks on Tuesday night.....
The rest of today is going to be a recovery period! Hopefully I should be able to get some photos posted on the website next week.....
